


The Engram Edits

by MercuryMapleKey



Category: Don't Starve (Video Game)
Genre: Adventure Mode, And I mean slow, Canon Compliant, Ficlet Collection, M/M, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-28
Updated: 2020-04-11
Packaged: 2020-09-28 08:48:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20423201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MercuryMapleKey/pseuds/MercuryMapleKey
Summary: A collection of memories."Friends", to enemies, uneasy truce, to grudgingly working alongside one another, to acquaintances, to "acquaintances"





	1. Nostalgia

**Author's Note:**

> Trying something a bit different. I've got a word prompt challenge in my back pocket and a bunch of vignettes I want to write to go with them, so we're going for a series collection. I can't promise that each fic will follow in a chronological line, or even that they'll all be linear to a single plot (because who doesn't want to dip their hands in the triumphant/untriumphant set?) but I can promise that they'll all work off each other and hold many of the same themes.  
The main theme of which being: this ship is my ultimate slowburn
> 
> So let's start at rock bottom, and let's Burn. Real. Slow.

_“Stop. That.”_

Wilson wakes up and it’s without the claws of darkness biting into his skin and choking him of air. It’s without the flickering of shadows darker than the pitch they’re being cast onto, or the chittering and groaning of something he can’t see, the eyes that watch constantly from the periphery. He wakes up and it’s to a familiar – but not quite bright enough to be reassuring – blue sky; and a tent, and a campfire.

And Maxwell standing over him, disheveled and furious like Wilson had once thought he could never be.

“You really know how to test a man’s patience, pal.” Maxwell growls, and it’s all teeth and ice. “Do you think this is funny?”

He’s back here again. The little island ‘paradise’ Maxwell had crafted as a show of truce. No darkness, no crawling horrors, no whispers or shadows or monsters…

Well there’s one monster.

Wilson climbs to his feet slowly, with a shake of his head that does little to dispel his disorientation. It never gets easier, but then there’s no reason it should. “I was so close this time.” He’s speaking more to himself than his unwanted guest, but Maxwell scoffs all the same, disgust marring his already ghoulish features.

“No you weren’t. You can’t even keep yourself fed.” He shoots a withering glare at Wilson, then out into the camp around them, but somehow it isn’t as nearly imposing as it had been when he had stood tall and dapper. Maybe there was something to be said about discovering a person’s true nature. Maybe it’s a comfort to see that he’s not having a good time either. “You don’t have what it takes to make it in that kind of world – no one does. I designed it that way.”

Or maybe Wilson is just tired, in spite of the dead sleep he’s just woken up from. His head is certainly sore enough. The first move Wilson makes is towards the old divining rod, grabbing it from its pedestal to fine tune its radio frequency. By now the weight of it is familiar in his hands, it feels like a lifeline; a safety net.

“I’m going back.” He’s definitely tired, but it’s so much easier to think clearly when he’s on this side of the world. Wilson keeps his burning eyes trained down on his work and _not_ on the shadow of a man in front of him. “Do what you want, I know you can’t stop me.”

He misses the way Maxwell’s teeth and claws grow with the depth of his scowl. The divining rod starts to hum slowly.

“Insolent—! What are you hoping to find? This game never ends for me, so just _stay_ here and make yourself comfortable for once.”

It bothers him. For some reason it bothers him the further Wilson progresses through this veritable sandwich of realities and there has got to be a reason for it. Maxwell looks as if he’s been tearing himself apart trying to keep him away from those portals. That, if nothing else, is proof that there is merit to this process. A method to the madness.

It is madness, too. A sane man wouldn’t have kept at it for so long.

Wilson is certain of few things in _this_ world, but one of the things he is quite positive of is that there’s something important at the other end of that darkness. There must be. And Wilson is going to be the one to figure it out. Partially because he can’t leave a good scientific theory untouched; partially because it’s something Maxwell doesn’t like him doing; and overwhelmingly because, when he_ can_ think clearly, he knows it’s the only real option available to him.

When Wilson does look towards Maxwell he’s a pawn before a dragon, but even though he’s facing down the devil there’s no room for dread. He just feels hollow, and so, so angry.

“I’ve learned better than to make a deal with you Maxwell.” He sighs, and that hollowness wins out. The divining rod hums again, weak and wretched. “If this is a game then either side can win it. I’m not about to quit while I’m ahead.”

Maxwell _is_ a monster, and he’s looking more like it each day, but it’s when he _smiles_ that the notion really twists in Wilson’s gut. It’s sharp, cruel, and always accompanied by a tone that is familiar in all the worst ways.

“Trust me when I say; there’s nothing there for you but death.” Despite everything, his dark eyes, his twisted and hunched stature, his dominion over a land where misfortune seemed to be the only constant – his voice still manages to flow like honey.

Wilson is the fly that got caught in the trap, but he’s got work to do and the day won’t last forever. “Given the source, I think I’ll test that hypothesis myself.” Theirs is a stalemate, and a bitter one at that.

“Then I'll make this easy for you_ \-- you can die again._” Maxwell disappears with a shift in the shadows and leaves a cluster of hounds in his wake. Wilson sprints off in the opposite direction and wishes, not for the first time, that it would make any difference if he did.

Nothing ever seems to die in the constant, but everything degraded.

_Nostalgia: A wistful desire to return to a former time in one’s life_


	2. Monachopsis

For a guy who so often claimed to hate him so much, Maxwell considered Wilson to be one of the more communicative pawns on the board.

Sitting on the Nightmare Throne, and ignoring as best as one could the constant stream of secrets and horrors _They_ filtered past the mind’s eye, there was very little to do but observe those who had been trapped within the constant and those who were still being lured in. There was quite a number of them by now. Almost all of which were completely aware who the King of this world was, but only one who continuously tried to make rather one sided conversation.

Equitably enough, Wilson was also the only one who had gotten anywhere close to the throne as of yet. Others had tried, naturally. There had been the librarian, and the robot, and that _mime_, and countless others Maxwell hadn’t bothered to remember by their poor performances, but the only idiot pig-headed enough to make it through as far as he had was Wilson.

Wilson who was, at current, stumbling through the darkness again muttering to himself and the starless sky almost fervently as he picked his way around dark trees and sleeping spiders. It was never just muttering though; every now and again he’d speak up and address Maxwell directly, an angry accusation to the open air. It had been amusing in its own right the first few times, and a downright pleasure the look on Wilson’s face when he came to realize he was actually being heard. All good things came to an end, however. He only did it now when he was past the point of insanity, either pleading for help or cursing him out. Often both. Maxwell didn’t indulge the behaviour typically now that the bit was played out. The death of a piece was amusing most of the time, but it held little weight in the Constant, and Wilson’s relentless bid for death as of late had become particularly annoying.

Frustration wasn’t an emotion Maxwell had felt in a long time. Neither was anger and Wilson had managed to provoke both. So this time when the hapless scientist began to call out to him Maxwell pulled his impressive composure back together (lest he be outdone by a madman) and left the throne behind him. In spirit. Temporarily.

“Enough of your quibbling, Higgsbury,” when Maxwell did jump out of the shadows into the constant proper, he made sure he was well put together. _They_ hadn’t been kind to him as of late, but then they never really had been anyways. “If you keep that up you might attract something unfriendly.”

Wilson was huddled around a rare campfire looking scruffy as a vagrant. He had been ranting about something or other, both to himself and the bird’s egg he was attempting to cook over a rock, but upon Maxwell’s sudden arrival he recoiled backwards, on his feet instantly with eyes frenzied to a hyperfocus.

It was like looking into the eyes of a wild animal. But starvation and madness were hardly the only things to elicit that expression in the other man. Leave him long enough with some blueprints and a science machine and he'd begin to look the same. 

“There you are.” Wilson muttered. He stared a moment longer, as though unable to trust what he was seeing was reality, then turned back to his poor dinner with a shaky sigh. He didn’t drop his weapon. “You lost your coat.”

Even his observations were aggravating. Spend too long around a guy like that and _They’d_ have full possession of him. Maxwell curled a clawed hand around the front of his jacket and didn’t let it show. “Just tell me what you want.”

Another bout of staring, this time out into the darkness where something whispered garbled nothings into the damp air. _They_ didn’t generally interfere with Maxwell’s games, but Wilson had no way of knowing that. His response to the threat, by shoving his food into his mouth before anything could take it from him, was charming naturally.

“You…” Wilson trailed off, swallowed, and scrubbed the back of his hand across his mouth. His frown was diminished with yolk in his beard. Just delightful. “You took away all the fireflies.”

“Yep.” Maxwell’s reply was a succinct one, said with a smile, and caused Wilson to flinch away from the confirmation as if it had the power to burn.

“I need them!” All at once he was on his feet again, pacing the shallow ring of light his fire provided with his hands in his hair. Desperate to survive another day. “You can’t just take them away – every other time I’ve at least had _some_ resources here and… and tell me where you’ve put them all! I _need_ those.”

Pathetic how barely constrained emotion laced a warble through Wilson’s blathering. He wasn’t well, but a week stumbling through the endless night had the habit of doing that to most. Maxwell watched him rave through eyes imprisoned an entire dimension away and felt nothing. Except that itching annoyance. And perhaps a bit of content over the other’s misfortune. 

“Tough luck, pal. Should have come prepared.”

“No!” Almost a sob, one that rose in volume as Wilson’s anger made it back to the forefront. Such a volatile temper was unbecoming, but it did little to hide the look of hurt that still lanced through his expression. Didn’t he ever get used to being cheated? “I can’t bring that much! Do you know—“ Wilson cut it off again shortly, tired eyes darting around to see if anything predatory had caught on to his outburst, and cradling his head in his hands; a cornered rat.

“Do you know how long I’ve been out here?” he began again in a harsh whisper, “There’s no sun, there’s no moon, I can’t find any grass, and now fireflies? I can’t—I can’t invent light. I can’t invent it. I don’t have anything to make it with, I used them up, you took away my only light!”

How was that anyone else’s problem? Really. To think that this thorn in the side had survived as long as he had. He was as pitiful as he was irrational, and possessed none of the natural advantages the other more successful pawns had at their disposal. It was simply ridiculous. Wilson _was_ surviving though, despite himself. He was tenacious and childish and with every death _They_ grew more and more interested in his potential.

Maxwell couldn’t have that. The throne was Hell, but Hell was his to command. Whether _They_ still wanted him there or not.

Anyone could be broken with the right pressure applied.

“Tell you what, Wilson,” let it never be said he was a _thoroughly_ merciless King. “I’ll make you a deal.”

“What kind of deal?” Wilson’s inability to keep still had sent him from prattling on about his misfortunes to anxiously scrounging through his dirty backpack, but being spoken to by name seemed to redirect his paranoia to the conversation at hand. “Making a deal with you never ends well. A deal with the devil, that’s the word for it.” Grass, bug nets, a woolen hat Maxwell believed may have belonged on a walrus at some point. Wilson appeared to be running quite low on food. He wouldn’t make it long regardless of what their terms were, and that, like so many things in his world, only served in Maxwell’s favour.

“Well, I’ve already sold you my soul evidently,” Wilson spat with an erratic gesture into the wilderness, “so what do you want next?”

The devil allegory was flattering, really, but this was hardly a stage for theatrics. Maxwell lit a cigar on the dying wisps of Wilson’s fire and appeared as a demon regardless.

“Two chests. One of them is full of the fireflies you want so badly, and the other contains enough food to last you through the next three days.” The items conjured themselves into being as Maxwell spoke of them, two ordinary wooden chests cast in the flickering shadows of the only light for miles. “You can pick one.”

It was a generous offer, and Wilson was upon it in seconds, shuffling towards the chests with a look on his face akin to the desperation of a dying man. Which he was. And would be again soon enough no matter his choice. It was predictable. Wilson was an immature and optimistic man and his thirst for easy answers would always outweigh his sense of caution. Just like it had the first time: the game was as good as over.

“Wait—“ Or maybe he had learned. “Tell me what the deal is.”

He had to make everything difficult, didn’t he?

“The deal is that you can never return here.” Maxwell frowned. The curling smoke of his cigar was a comfort nevertheless and collected his composure for him. “If you lose, you will go back to your camp and live in peace. Doesn’t that sound nice?” Better for the both of them. Wilson didn’t really want the pot of gold at the end of this rainbow anyways – he wasn’t built to live in darkness.

“No.” It was the most controlled Wilson had looked or sounded yet, and he was on his knees halfway between his tiny fire and the offer he couldn’t stop glancing towards even now. Turning it down must have been just killing him, or it would be soon anyways. Well, defiance had its charm, but Wilson was an idiot.

A stubborn idiot.

“No.” The idiot repeated, shaking his head as if to force away his instinct. “No, if I die… If I die I’ll just come back. Again. However long it takes, why would I stop now? You can’t keep me from leaving, Maxwell.”

He had absolutely no idea what he was charging towards. So be it. Maxwell wasn’t about to reason with the unreasonable, and he was about to give up his role no less. Instead, he would play his part. As he has been for an eternity now. As was necessary of his world. Maxwell was King and there was no more powerful a position than that (at least not until you thought about the ones playing the board).

“Well, if that’s your decision…”All it took was a smile, stretched so wide to see the point of his teeth over lips, and Wilson was cast into the darkness. The light from the fire whisked away with the rest of Maxwell’s offer, and in its place only suffocating shadow and the scent of smouldering cinders.

Wilson yelped; a strangled noise of terror as he scrambled blindly about his makeshift camp. His miner’s hat cast a shallow pool of bioluminescence before long and put him in a sickly and pathetic light.

That, at least, suited him.

But then Wilson came for him next. Dirt stained hands grappled against Maxwell’s suit jacket as Wilson peered up through the poor light.

“Don’t Do That.” He hissed. It was meant as a threat, or maybe it was meant as a plea now that he knew his life was once again forfeit. It was useless either way and served to evoke only a vague sense of disgust in Maxwell who shook Wilson off without hassle.

The right pressure it appeared, had finally been applied. Wilson was unraveling fast, and with his mind slipped his persistence.

“You don’t even want this!” He was yelling again, this time with abandon to the wilderness around him, or those who were watching his actions even now. Wilson did a poor job of concealing his sentiments at the best of times, and he was visibly a wreck with frustration and disappointment finally having eating away at his core. It felt good to see it on him for once. Maxwell was the rational one – the charismatic, the composed, let Wilson feel the effects of his own obstinacy instead.

“You’ve said so yourself!” Wilson continued, looking every bit as frantic and uncompromising as he sounded, and still looking for reason where there was none. “You’re tired of this, you’re _bored_ of me – and I’m well past tired of you. I don’t want to keep dying. I hate dying, but I’m not going to stop until you do so just let me go.” He was nothing. He had nothing. Nothing but the will to drive the both of them insane. “We can make another deal, you can be king of whatever, I don’t care, just let me go home.”

It felt even better to continue to disappoint him. “I’ve told you;” Maxwell spoke calmly, and Wilson was crazy, “there is no way home.”

“Bullshit!” Another grab, but this time Maxwell was ready for it and Wilson’s hands curled on nothing but shadow. A dying spark. “It’s your stupid game, play it fairly!”

In this light (what little was left of it), Maxwell could almost see where he’d been wrong in the beginning. It was hard to tell from his position on the Throne, but perhaps annoyance wasn’t the right word to describe Wilson or the impact he left on him. Perhaps Maxwell had actually come to hate that sorry excuse for a scientist. A first with any of his unwilling participants but so fitting to the headache he’d become.

If that was the case, then it made sense the unique satisfaction Maxwell felt as he reached over to pluck the last firefly in the dark world from Wilson’s hat. He crushed it between clawed fingers and reminded Wilson of his place in this world:

“My game, my rules.”

In the pitch darkness, there is very little to do but wait for the inevitable. Maxwell was already back on the throne by the time Charlie manifested, and Wilson, despite his best efforts, couldn’t fight or outrun something that was never there to begin with. He certainly did try though.

It wasn’t over yet, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t still be entertaining. If there was one thing Maxwell has always liked Wilson for, it was for putting on a good show when he died.

\--

No pawn ever forgot their deaths in the constant. It was the price for losing. Over time, tribulation, and the necessity of circumstance, Wilson eventually came to look past what Maxwell had done in his time on the Throne. But Wilson could only remember his starving gut and broken body. He recalled what happened to the pigs on a full moon and why you never challenged a varg. He had no idea how it had felt from the other side to watch him be torn apart time and time again.

His trust, however limited, was as sorely misplaced as his optimism. And so was Maxwell to receive either.

_Monachopsis: The subtle but persistent feeling of being out of place – maladapted. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So i feel like... obviously the Throne changes people, but being currently on it and being previously corrupted by it appear to be very different things and I just want to look into like... what does that look like? What happened there? What does it feel like? How do we get from point at to all the other points in the narrative?
> 
> Maxwell is a really interesting character because he does through so many (drastic?) changes of character within just the limited canon that we have, and as much as I want to get into the redemption arc side and all the aftermath there, I think something needs to be said about how he might have been on the Throne too. Because there was a lot going on there. And Wilson... to be frank, if he's the one who got to the throne first, which canonically he is, then there's no other way he got there than through sheer unrelenting stubbornness. (Optimistic? Foolhardy? Both!) So I don't know. I just wanted to highlight this and it just had to be the first things I wrote. 
> 
> And if all of that sounds like I just haven't gotten over adventure mode yet and am using fiction to mentally process the amount of times I've died trying to make any progress at all then yeah you're probably right. I'll die mad about it.
> 
> So. I feel bad that this is going to post without any other part in the series that would be like... more palatable to the average fic-goer I suppose? I promise the next installation will be tonally... different. I can't promise it's going to be all that much more gay but slowest burn in the universe, guys. I'm writing this trainwreck one tiny little atom collision at a time. We'll get heat, we'll get there, i'll just keep shaking this box of particles, long as it takes. It'll build. Please be patient with me, i work a lot.


	3. Inure

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look. 
> 
> I have nothing to say about this one. Except that I'm pretty sure I got possessed halfway though and started turning in a completely different direction. Does it work cohesively? Is it good? Does it conclude anything or move things forward? That is up for you to decide, I guess, because I can't keep kicking this around. 
> 
> I'm so busy now, I can't tell you how often this is going to update, but I will post things I don't like so that we can keep moving forward despite our frustration. That's the maxwil experience.

_“What are you doing?” _

_“Don’t touch anything.” _

_“Give me that!”_

Three days. It had been three days since they’d called a truce in the camp, and only about 24 hours since Maxwell’s big idea that they use his codex and Wilson’s scientific knowledge of all things portals to create a way back home. But they wouldn’t be going home, they wouldn’t be going anywhere at all if Maxwell didn’t stop _doing_ what he was doing.

What was he doing? Well, nothing really. Not at the moment, but Wilson knew that it was only a matter of time before he tried – truce or no. Because that’s what the man did; it’s what Wilson had come to expect, and he was wary to let Maxwell so much as out of his sight while they shared a camp together. But that was hardly unreasonable, wasn’t it? He might have been playing nice now because he had no other choice, but it was Maxwell who’d tricked him in the first place with a project almost exactly like this one. It was Maxwell who’d played with human lives like they were pieces on a board,

and Maxwell who held his hands open in a silent display of surrender after Wilson had defensively snatched yet another item out of them. He had one of those fancy gems this time, and Wilson didn’t quite know what they did yet, but he did know that they were probably best left out of Maxwell’s corrupted hands. Much like everything else in his camp.

Things were going well.

“Hey, pal?” Wilson would never say Maxwell was a patient man, but he looked as if he was trying to be – open palms curled into crossed arms fluidly. “If you want this to work out, you’re going to have to trust me.”

Well, Wilson wouldn’t call himself all that patient either.

“Trust _you_?” If it sounded incredulous that’s because Wilson was, and it wasn’t just the heat emanating off that strange gem that had him seeing red as he tossed it back into the chest between them. _His_ chest, full of_ his_ belongings – Maxwell didn’t have control or reign over anything anymore as a matter of fact, and that was the way Wilson preferred it to stay. So what if he was testy? The situation was already stressful enough as it was. “What reason do I have to trust you? If anything I have a few dozen reasons not to!”

Was he going to name them all? Why yes! Wilson was! Camp was a quiet place today with the nearby pig village sleeping off last night’s full moon and Chester slobbering contentedly over the fire pit; they had time for this.

“Let’s see,” Wilson began, counting off on his hands the deaths he didn’t possess enough fingers for, “there was your hounds, your clockwork soldiers, any time you sent me to that nightmarish winter world, your _fire_ hounds – thank you very much for that one – about a thousand different spiders—” This wasn’t the first time it had come up in the few short nights they’d spent together. In fact, aside from their plan of escape it was more or less the only conversation they'd had. A point of contention so strong that it eclipsed the goals they were able to agree on, but then why shouldn’t it have been? Their entire relationship had been Wilson struggling to survive what Maxwell had thrown at him. And failing, more times than not. “—those _things_ in the swamp, a wormhole right into a killer bee swarm, living trees, living shadows, even _bigger_ spiders, and let’s not forget your _ice_ hounds – is there anything in this world that hasn’t killed me?”

It was incredible, honestly, that they’d even been able to cooperate this far. It wasn’t going to last.

By the time he’s finished Maxwell had pursed his lips into an impressive frown, long fingers drumming against the sleeve of his jacket. “The sooner we get out of here, the sooner you won’t have to find out.” He replied evenly. And he had this way of speaking, the intonation maybe? The accent? Either way it succeeds only in lighting a fire under Wilson’s skin.

There’s always a new threat. That much is true, and it was a problem for both of them now that someone else was sitting at the head of the board, but Wilson didn’t particularly care about that at the moment. He didn’t even particularly see why he should when it was Maxwell’s fault this cursed world worked the way it did in the first place.

At least he was pretty sure it was.

“Is that really all you have to say about it?” Wilson didn’t quite know what he was looking for in his accusation, whether it be an instigation or an explanation or just a reason to say that he was right in his distrust, but he knew Maxwell wasn’t likely to give it.

He didn’t. He brushed some dirt off his lapel, which wasn’t even all that roughed up to begin with, and instead replied with: “I was confined up there for longer than I care to know. I don’t want to be stuck _down here_ for any longer than I have to.”

“Finally! A change of tune!” Wilson threw his hands in the air in time with his exclamation, and nearly missed the orange glow that was beginning to overtake the sky. Maxwell was shorter in person than he’d been on the throne, but he was still entirely too tall and Wilson hated that he still had to glare up at him. “Where was this attitude when I had been trying to leave before?”

There were a lot of things Wilson still hated about that man. His magic, his ego, his propensity to use logical arguments as a means of deceit… Wilson was no stranger to logic and reason, and he knew the combined effort of their escape would be worth so much more than either one of them could accomplish on their own but – was there any logic to be had in trusting the man who had deceived and murdered you? Wilson hadn’t needed any help in surviving before, nor had he in building his transportato machines and making his way to the throne – he could do this on his own if he wanted.

...It was just a pity Maxwell didn’t enjoy living in his treacherous world quite so much as he’d enjoyed ruling over it.

But he didn’t, of course. And his arguments were still logical, of course. And it made perfect sense when he took the high road and pointed out: “They put you on the throne as well, you know what They show you.”

A little bit. Enough that Wilson knew to just what degree he should fear Them. Enough that his entire life had felt like nothing but an atom in the cosmos before Their ravenous shadows – terrified but inspiring, dependent but invincible, everything but absolutely nothing—nothing at all. Not without Them.

It had been a little crazy.

But then, it hadn’t exactly been a walk in the park living in Maxwell’s world either.

“I didn’t start abducting people, did I?” Is what Wilson chose to respond with instead; even though he could understand to some degree. Even though he’d been the one to free Maxwell of his servitude as King in the first place. But he couldn’t let him have so much as an inch after what had happened between them. He couldn’t stand there and listen to Maxwell calmly explain away his role in all this as if it had meant nothing to anyone but himself. He was so unbelievably selfish.

And he didn’t even care. “You were hardly on it a day.” Maxwell intoned, irritation tightening his voice and posture. He may not actually have had any interest in continuing the argument, but Wilson did.

Wilson was fuming. “And how long did it take you to start murdering people?”

“Actually—“

Wilson was on the warpath. “I don’t know, do I? It didn’t take you very long to start killing me!”

Incredibly, that did nothing to cut the growing tension in the air or to make anyone feel better about his situation. But it was enough to wake Chester up from where he’d been sleeping on the ground. Poor thing, he didn’t deserve to be stuck here either.

Maxwell was annoyed by now, the one mood Wilson could easily identify on the former king and one that didn’t look any prettier now that he was human again. If he could still be called as such.

“Then what would you like me to do, Wilson?” His smiles were still the worst. They were sharp and insincere, and basically served as a succinct reminder of Maxwell’s personality as a whole. Wilson was fairly positive he hated them too. “Do you want me to apologize? Do you think that would change anything?”

It was probably pedantic to dwell on something Wilson already knew was likely never going to happen, but it felt worse still to let Maxwell get away with thinking he still held all the cards. Because… well because he didn’t anymore. Theirs was an equal playing field now, or at least it should have felt that way, but every altercation set Wilson at a more defensive stance than the last, and Maxwell? Maxwell stayed the same – incorrigible.

Wilson turned his head to glower at the empty fire pit, and felt the pawn instead. “It’s not as if you’ve tried…” he reminded, and it felt petty, especially when he’d watched the throne tear Maxwell into dust only a few short sunsets ago. Especially when he knew the full situation, the series of events that had led them both to his old familiar fire pit a few nights back was more complicated than Wilson liked to admit. Words weren’t going to build any means of escape, and Wilson would never trust him regardless but an apology did seem at the very least to be a reasonable place to start. Maxwell could at least do that much.

Wilson turned expectant eyes on Maxwell and waited for the obvious. Maxwell avoided his stare effortlessly and did what he did best, “Well I don’t really see the need to,” he lied.

Oh, never mind. Wilson hated him.

“Get out of my camp.”

“What?” Maxwell was visibly shocked by the sudden demand, and the look on his face was so satisfying. For a moment or two. “Don’t be hasty,” he backtracked, immediately. “You need me if you want to get out of here.”

“I don’t care.” In the moment, he really didn’t. Wilson had wanted nothing but to get out of this world since he’d been pulled into it so many seasons ago, but if freedom meant having to work face to face with the _Great Maxwell_, and his smug arrogance, and his complete lack of conscience, and whatever it was that he’d done to incite this argument in the first place, then Wilson wasn’t certain that freedom was all that important to him after all!

Which was almost insane a thought to consider, but that was just the effect Maxwell had on people.

“Nothing is going to change if we stay here.” Wilson decided, and somewhere under the setting sun a spider snarled in agreement. “It can wait. Get out of my camp.”

It had been a good idea, pooling their resources to escape, but it wasn’t going to work. Not while Wilson still had his pride, and definitely not while Maxwell kept doing…

_Whatever_ it was he kept doing. Wilson didn't know quite what it was at the moment, but he wasn't going to wait to find out. Maxwell was just going to have to leave. 

“I’d be happy to,” Maxwell began after a moments pause, glancing out to the treeline where the last vestiges of the day stretched out over the tops of the conifers. “But it’s almost dark. Looks like it will have to wait.”

Au contraire! That was a problem that could be solved! Wilson turned and marched across his camp abruptly. He stomped over to the fire pit, grabbed a bundle of fire wood and grass that was laying nearby, and unceremoniously dumped the lot into Maxwell’s arms.

“There you go. Now leave.”

Maxwell didn’t sound so smug now. “You can’t be serious.”

“_Out._”

\--

_“Well Chester? It looks like it’s come to this.”_

It had been a few more days since Maxwell left his camp and Wilson had been doing just fine for himself. Well of course he had. Surviving in this world had been his constant now for long enough that Wilson no longer had much issue with finding himself food or holding back the darkness. And with the matter of the throne left securely behind him there was no real reason to stray too far away from the safe little foothold his camp provided either. Things were quite calm now, relatively speaking.

And in that peace, Wilson’s mind quickly turned back to science and the project at hand. There was a way out of this world. There had to be, because there had been a way in – because of the law of equal exchange – and Wilson just had to figure out how to engineer the exit.

He could admit to himself that he’d had some assistance pulling together his genius idea this time. Maxwell, for all that he’d been intolerable with his magic, and his ego, and his history of callous murder had actually held some wisdom of his own when it came to the portal’s construction. What Wilson needed was an appropriate power source, one that was connected to this world in such a way that its alchemic properties could act as a bridge between the two dimensions. It was an impossibly difficult variable to account for given the available resources, but before their last argument Maxwell had spoken of a source of fuel comprised of nearly the exact same components as the shadows that travelled freely between the realms.

Wilson had seen nightmare fuel before. Only the once, lying among the rocks and rubble after he’d woken up on a shattered touchstone slab feeling more as if he’d been thrown out of a third story window. The semifluid material had been unnerving to look at and even more unpleasant to hold, and at the time Wilson had only tossed it in one of his chests among a couple gems, and a gnome, and a few other objects he hadn’t figured out a use for yet. Now he could see that Maxwell had at least been correct about the substance’s properties – it was a perfect conduit.

The problem was obtaining it. And that problem led Wilson to the predicament he was in now, staring down at a pile of green capped mushrooms that Chester had helpfully been storing for him since last evening.

He wasn’t particularly fond of this idea, but after a few days of kicking the idea around in his mind, Wilson concluded that there was no other way. The theory was sound: in order to obtain nightmare fuel one first had to experience a nightmare, and those shadow creatures had never failed to make themselves known whenever he was feeling particularly ill. He’d done this before, he could handle it.

Probably.

“I don’t suppose you’d prefer to do this one for me?” He asked a slobbering Chester, who only panted eagerly up at him. No response. 

“No, of course not. I don’t blame you.” Running a hand through Chester’s smelly fur eased his mind somewhat, but it wasn’t enough to steel Wilson’s nerves entirely in the face of his unappetizing lunch. Wilson brought the first mushroom to his mouth for a final hesitant scrutiny. Two should have been enough by his calculations, but it was coming back from the effect of the mushrooms that had always been the difficult part. He had never been much of a fun guy after mistakenly eating the green ones in the past.

Heheh.

Well, no more stalling. It was now or never.

“Say pal, those don’t look so good.”

It was almost a relief, the interruption. Almost.

“What are you doing here?” He’s not all that surprised to see him again truth be told. As brilliant a scientist as Wilson was it had quickly become apparent that he might still need _some_ assistance in constructing the portal. No doubt Maxwell had come to the same conclusion, but just because Wilson was dedicated to their escape of this place didn’t mean he had to enjoy it.

Maxwell looked as well put together as always and only raised his eyebrows as he regarded he mushrooms in Wilson’s hands. “A better question: what are _you_ doing?”

There was a perfectly scientific explanation for this.

“What does it look like I’m doing?” Indignation found Wilson rising to his feet to defend a practice he hadn’t even wanted to partake in in the first place. “I’ve developed a method for obtaining the fuel _you_ said the machine required.”

The experiment may not have been the biggest stroke of genius Wilson had ever had, but that didn’t mean that he wanted to hear Maxwell’s judgement of it, and it certainly didn’t mean that he was at all tolerant of the trace of amusement that crossed the magician’s features.

“Well I suppose I’ll leave you to it.” Maxwell concluded, without passing any verbal judgement whatsoever. No sarcasm, no condescending perception, no reason for him to stall the entire experiment altogether, and Wilson sighed audibly.

“I assume you have a better idea?”

Of course he would.

“Of course I do.”

He did hate him. More than he’d ever disliked anyone, he was certain, but if there was one thing Wilson disliked more than Maxwell it had to be every warped and faded memory he had of struggling through the darkness alone. Frenzied fragments of memories that played back like nightmares, with his heart in his throat, and his head pounding to be free of his skull, and the shadows that stalked him without rest. They were hungry for his brain. He was almost positive They had said so when he’d briefly been pinned to the throne, and Wilson wasn’t particularly looking forward to seeing Them again after that. Enough so that he could concede to being open to other suggestions.

Even if they came from Maxwell.

“Well?” Wilson started, and he really was trying to be gentlemanly this time. “Will you tell me?”

Maxwell looked like he was enjoying this too much. “And deprive the scientist of a chance to test his theories? Only if you insist.”

“Is there a reason you came back when I distinctly remember asking you to leave?” Fury found Wilson first, and the familiarity of it was almost a relief in its own right too. “Or are you just doing your part to ensure I still suffer? If you have a better idea I want to hear it!” It was so easy to argue with Maxwell, it made the already unpleasant reflection of his own few shortcomings so much simpler.

Not that he was asking for help. Wilson was perfectly capable of gathering the necessary resources on his own, if he had to, and he saw no better alternative than the unfortunate plan he had already begun to set into motion – but Maxwell of course had been up to something. He was always up to something. So when he opened up that strange book of his and easily pulled a glob of concentrated terror from its pages it was all Wilson could do not to stare.

Now this time it truly was relief. “How did you get that?”

“I’m the King of Shadows,” Maxwell smirked, tucking the book away fluidly under one arm. “I’m familiar with nightmares.”

“Ex-king.” Wilson reminded. He wasted no time leaving his ill-begotten mushrooms behind to have a closer look at the inky shadow locked in Maxwell’s hand, stopping himself just short of grabbing the nightmare for himself. It looked so similar to the one pooled at the bottom of whichever container Wilson had left his in, and yet at the same time more alive. It breathed a heavy shudder under Wilson’s scrutiny and pained Maxwell’s hand behind it as a shadowed set of claws. Unsettling by all accounts.

Wilson decided he could trust Maxwell to hold on to that one, and only poked the warm blob with a curious finger. “Do you think this will be enough?”

“I doubt it, but I have my ways of obtaining more.” Maxwell doesn’t elaborate and for once Wilson doesn’t expect him to, satisfied enough with the notion that the subject of nightmare fuel wouldn’t have to be his problem anymore.

Wait a moment--

“What’s the catch?” The question caught Wilson off guard even as he asked, but only because he had failed to ask it sooner.

“Pardon?”

Distracted from his observations of the nightmare fuel, Wilson waved an accusatory hand towards Maxwell instead. “There’s always something with you. What’s your game this time?” The nightmare fuel, the plans in the codex, their truce – there had to be something. There was always something. What had he been planning on taking?

To his credit, Maxwell bore the allegation with grace, but then that wasn’t all that accrediting at all given who he was. “I told you, I just want to get out of here.” He answered, and Wilson squinted up at him suspiciously.

That just wasn’t good enough. It wasn’t that the thought was unbelievable – the constant was hell on some plane of Earth Wilson hadn’t quite figured out how to quantify yet – but rather that it wasn’t quite enough to be convincing. The last time Wilson had trusted Maxwell on the grounds of shared interest he’d built a gateway to another world and look where that had gotten him. He wasn’t keen on making the same mistake again regardless of how little choice they had on the matter; there had to be more to it. There had to be something he was missing, and they wouldn’t be going anywhere at all until Wilson figured it out.

There was a faint rattling sounding from the direction of his camp. Faint at first, and almost imperceptible around the natural racket of wildlife around them; birds chirping, Chester slobbering, the distant snorting of pigs. Wilson didn’t even notice until the unmistakable scent of cooked meat in warm juices wafted past his nose and sent off pangs of hunger in his stomach.

“Are you using my crock pot?” It wasn’t that simple. It couldn't be that simple. 

It was.

Maxwell cleared his throat into his hand politely and shrugged. “It seemed a waste to let it sit empty.”

So _that’s_ what he had been doing. Wilson was nearly a natural at surviving by now. He knew his way around a treeguard, and which mushrooms were poisonous, and exactly how many days they should have until the onset of winter, but_ Maxwell _had only been surviving as a pawn for a few days time. It was an equal playing field after all: he needed Wilson’s help.

“Oh.” Wilson thought he might have been seeing another human for the first time since arriving here,

_“Well I guess that’s fine.”_

_Inure: to become accustomed to a bad situation_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wish I knew. I wish I knew. You would not believe how much of this was completely unplanned from my original concepts. I was fighting with them the entire way through.  
I'm so close to just chucking this in the garbage man hoo boy. if you're reading this then either i'm sorry or you're lucky depending on whether or not you hated it
> 
> I said the next one would be tonally different and i did not lie to you. Now for my next trick, the next one will be actually a little romantic


	4. Anfractuous

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we are back from the abyss that is graduate school. I wish I had more to say for it than I actually do. 
> 
> Anyways, you know way back when I said that this fic would be a collection of entries that probably wouldn't have a linear progression? I was wrong about that. and I've also got like 10 more parts planned out that who knows when I'll get to them. 
> 
> I'm so sorry to put you all through this again.

He didn’t get any less interesting. That was the problem. He didn’t stop being intriguing, he didn’t disclose any of the mystery. Maxwell was as much a closed book as he had been unfathomably cruel, and unfortunately to Wilson – endowed with the mind of a scientist as he was – it represented just one more puzzle in the Constant. Another measure, another test of will, another set of hypotheses to test and pluck at and pull apart until he’d developed a working theory.

<strike>It was alluring </strike>No, that certainly wasn’t the right word, it was _annoying_. Maxwell posing as a mystery to be unravelled took time and effort away from the real projects at play. Like the portal, for instance, and the logics and physics of the Constant itself. Nothing worked correctly here. Gold was sharper than flint, ghosts floated above their tombstones no matter how little Wilson believed they could, and Maxwell was <strike>interesting </strike>

He wasn’t interesting, he was impeding their progress. Maxwell knew better than anyone how this world operated. He knew how to make nightmares out of shadows and what caused the normally friendly pigmen to become feral. He even knew what those wormholes were comprised of, and that wasn’t even something Wilson had _ever_ had any desire to discover. But for all that he knew – useful information most of the time, Wilson wouldn’t discredit him that – he wasn’t particularly forthcoming with any of it, and that left him something of<strike> a mystery</strike>

No, it left him a _liability_. Maxwell couldn’t be trusted. That was a fact Wilson was not about to overlook under any circumstances. He couldn’t be trusted and he was keeping critical information about the Constant to himself unless it became necessary for their success. That kind of secrecy was rightfully suspicious, not to mention fundamentally unfair when Wilson had already put so much time and effort into understanding (and traversing) this nonsensical plane of reality on his own. But the point was that Maxwell was untrustworthy. He made himself out to be an unknown variable and that was hardly a reassuring presence to have on the other side of the fire pit given their history. It made it difficult to sleep at night.

Or it should have, at least.

The season passed without incident, autumn into winter and their jury-rigged portal began to take shape. It was working. All of their planning, their bickering, their tenuous truce had been worth it as it began to take form in the portal that would finally take them home. Maxwell hadn’t betrayed him once. Yet.

But there was always the next day, and the next, and as their truce spanned from days to weeks Wilson became increasingly aware of how little he actually knew of his temporary… acquaintance. Who had he been before he’d come to the Constant? (Still a jerk, presumably.) What had he learned as the self-proclaimed “King of Shadows”? (Besides how to torture the innocent.) <strike>How had he found </strike>(Never mind that one wasn’t important.)

So perhaps he was interesting. In the way a near-miss collision or a natural disaster was interesting. Certainly not because Wilson was _interested_ in Maxwell himself. On the contrary, a scientist didn’t study infectious disease for any particular joy of the topic – he studied it to prevent it from killing anyone. Wilson was no biologist and Maxwell couldn’t be considered any more devastating than a plague, but the principle was the same; the more Wilson understood of Maxwell the more prepared he would be to prevent…

Making another mistake. That’s what it had been the first time. Just a mistake. There was no way Wilson could have known that the voice filtering through his radio (like no voice had ever been able to before) could have had any ill intentions towards him. Of course not. He’d simply been too

<strike>Interested</strike>

<strike>Enamoured</strike>

<strike>Excited</strike>

_Focused. _He’d been too focused on the science of course. On the verge of a real breakthrough, intrigued and excited by the limits of his own mind. It had been brilliant after all, his engineering. Even now he could feel the bourgeoning energy in the air as their newest project began to take shape. It wouldn’t be the same as the last time though – they were on equal footing now. Maxwell may have remained a mystery, but Wilson had become a skeptic, he’d see himself home safely by the right of his own logical genius and invention! Despite the fact that <strike>Maxwell was helping him build the machine. </strike>

That had become unavoidable as soon as nightmare fuel had come into the mix. Wilson wasn’t about to stoop to that level just yet, and Maxwell was already well versed in it, he’d come to learn. They had reached an arrangement with regards to their invention, and it hadn’t represented a problem insofar, regardless of the fact that <strike>they were making another portal together. </strike>

A portal into the world and a portal back out of it again. By now Wilson was something of an expert in the science of portals, and this simply made the most sense. It really did. Notwithstanding the fact <strike>that Maxwell had been the one to suggest this portal same as the last one. </strike>

No.

No, they had both come to the same conclusion on this one. A portal was the right decision. It was the only decision. Wilson didn’t trust Maxwell, he didn’t know Maxwell, and he surely didn’t _like_ Maxwell, but by the same vein Wilson couldn’t deny that Maxwell had become integral to his escape of this place. Call it another inconsistency of the Constant. One more unfortunate lapse in logic, another puzzle to be solved, something of <strike>intere </strike>

It was just temporary. It was just until he escaped. It wasn’t because he found him interesting.

That would have represented a problem.

_Anfractuous: winding or twisting; roundabout; tortuous_


	5. Vitreous

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Ten thousand words in and we've gotten to a single exposed wrist, don't say I never give you anything."  
\- The author of the least romantic maxwil fic in the world

They had been hearing the hounds since the morning. Not for the first time in recent memory, but the first since the falling of the winter snow. The hunts had been running closer together as of late. Maxwell couldn’t remember if he had designed them that way or if was just his own poor luck. Either way they had about half a day before the distant barking turned to chase. Wilson, ever the optimist, had decided they still had time to collect the necessary gold and stone before the pengull flocks had a chance to make a complete annoyance out of the endeavor. He was so sure of this fact that he forgot to bring any decent weapons with him. 

Surprise, surprise they were attacked by hounds.

Then they were running, heavy feet across hard ground and slippery snow. Never a particularly joyful experience even in Maxwell’s youth and no better with more than half a dozen slobbering beasts on their tails and Wilson’s scruffy little mutt bouncing happily along behind them.

“The swamp!” Wilson was two steps in front and pointed towards the reeds and squalor of one of those filthy marshes as they rushed past it. “We can lose them in there.”

“You’re kidding me.” And risk the merms and tentacle beasts instead? “No, I have a better idea.” Hounds were bad enough, but Maxwell wasn’t willing to die in a swamp to be rid of them. A few hundred more metres and there was a wormhole ready to transport them out of harm’s way. It was foolhardy.

Wilson was of course ever the fool and didn’t wait to hear him out before changing direction and stampeding headlong into the swamp with the full pack of white hounds after him. Maxwell didn’t follow, for the obvious reasons. Instead he hung back with the mutt where Wilson had dropped its anchor and merely had to listen to catch the full extent of the chaos that unfolded. The snarling of angry spiders woken from their sleep, the gurgle and snap of whipping tentacles as they rose out of the soggy depths, and the yelps and whimpers of Maxwell’s old pets subdued. It was reckless. Effective maybe, but only while one’s luck held out and Maxwell, for one, preferred to gamble with other lives than his own. Wilson’s naivete seemed to be the only thing that saved him from himself.

“This is why your master has learned to keep a full stock of healing salves in you.” Maxwell informed the glorified rucksack panting beside him. Chester drooled in response. The eyebone watched him.

Something beside him growled and lunged.

It was only a fleeting moment in which he let his guard down, but a moment was all that it took. The hound caught him in the arm first, teeth sinking through fabric and into flesh as he was knocked off balance. The ground not a great place to be with a beast on him, Maxwell forced his caught arm further against the hound’s jaw in a bid for time as he scrambled to find the weapon that had been knocked out of his hand. Instinct, adrenaline, it didn’t mean much with a full set of fangs on him like a vice grip. The hound doubled down, opening its massive jaw just to chomp down again twice in succession. This time with the bites came the sensation of ice – a bone deep chill that spread along sinew and skin and numbed him to the shoulder. Pitifully, he felt he might pass out before he could truly defend himself, the pain and the ice bringing with them such a wave of fogginess that for a moment it was all he could do to remain upright.

The moment passed quickly. There was the stomp of quick feet across the ground, a flash of motion, and the hound was unceremoniously yanked – or rather smacked – off of him.

Wilson. Wilson looking for all the world like something feral as he rained the business end of whatever he had picked up down on the hound with all the grace of a thug with a baseball bat. He had plenty enough experience with the hunts by now of course and had scraped his way through far worse. Even still the sight of the self-proclaimed ‘gentleman’ scientist beating a dog quite to death with the desiccated arm of a tentacle from the swamp he’d just come from was a sight to see. Relentless, resolute, uncontrolled… all the things Maxwell could so clearly remember hating about Wilson now finally coming to use. Even if it was crude and emotional. Either this world truly had broken him, or he’d been half mad to begin with.

The hound died with the rest of them – a temporary state even for them – and for a moment when Wilson turned back to him his eyes were noting but wild fury.

“Stars! Maxwell what happened?” And then that moment was gone, and Wilson’s hair stuck up around the sides of his football helmet like a poor imitation of a clown. “That thing took you down in one bite!”

“They aren’t supposed to _be_ biting me in the first place.” Maxwell retorted, cradling his injured arm crossed behind the other and doing his best not to mind the dark stain seeping through his suit jacket. Blood was as common as darkness in the Constant but knowing that hardly made the pain feel any less, and Maxwell preferred to only have one of those two things on him in the first place.

Wilson was covered in monster blood and mud from the swamp, which he tried unsuccessfully now to brush off his hands and onto his trouser leg.

“I don’t see why not, you don’t look like a king to me.” He supplied unhelpfully, and Maxwell twisted his grimace into a smirk.

“Let me rephrase: they wouldn’t have been in the first place had you not decided that digging through rocks couldn’t wait.” The snow was cold and his arm was hot and cold all at once as he rose to a stand. They wouldn’t be making it back to camp without stopping if they didn’t leave soon.

Wilson was digging through the monster soaked snow. “I thought we had more time.” He explained, “You didn’t have to come along.”

And leave him at camp to fend off a pack of bloodthirsty mongrels himself? Not likely.

“Anyways, it’s not all bad. We got the resources we needed and look, the white ones usually have these gemstones in them.” Sure enough, Wilson had a blue gem in his hands and Maxwell wondered not for the first time why he had thought that to be a good idea at the time. The last thing these winters needed was more freezing.

“Yes,” was all he said instead, “blue has domain over ice.”

“Oh.” Nothing more, just the blank-faced realization and the potential to draw back on what they had already argued to death. Maxwell half expected him to launch into another tirade all the same, as he so often liked to, but Wilson only crossed over to give his slobbering mutt a pat as he fed him the gem to hold on to.

“Are you hurt?”

That Maxwell had not expected. Surely then it was shock more than pride that saw him brushing off the question with, “I’m fine.” Hardly.

Wilson’s eyes came to a squint as he looked suspiciously at Maxwell and then down. The snow, pure and white as it was, was quick to betray his true nature. “You’re bleeding.”

“So are you.” At least that much was true. Between the slime and the grime Maxwell could see a few lacerations on the scientist’s face and hands; probably from when he’d stopped to pick up his charming new weapon.

Wilson stopped to regard his own bruised hands and sighed, “Well all the same, I’d rather not have a pack of merms following the blood back to my camp. You can patch up here.” Then, to his pet monster, “how about it, Chester? Where are those salves I gave you?”

The process of retrieving any one item from that creature required gloves to say the least. Wilson had only those fingerless things he kept insisting were called heat sleeves but he pulled a number of sticky bandages out of it regardless.

“Hold these.”

Poultices. Maxwell reached over to take them with his good arm and immediately his glove was sticky as well. Nope. Down they went to the snow as he shook the clingy bundle of wrappings off his hand. He needed to use that right now.

This was going to be a tricky one. To start, he was down one hand to bandage with given the placement of his injury, and now the other – non-dominant one, mind you – was covered in honey. But beyond that, there was something distinctly unpleasant in the thought of opening up and revealing such a wound in front of… well anyone, really. Wilson was preoccupied pulling even more junk out of Chester, so Maxwell made quick work of it, peeling back the torn sleeve of his suit and dress shirt to reveal. Red. An almost startling shade of bright red. It was collecting under his glove and dripping off the leather. It beat in time with his pulse and send an unmistakable lump of nausea to the back of his throat with the smell of it. Red, and mangled, and frozen, and here Maxwell had been half expecting to have monster blood running through his veins. Cleaning it was a simple task at least with all the snow on the ground at least. The ice of it could have even felt nice if it weren’t for the already frigid temperature.

“Your hounds really did a number on you, didn’t they?” Wilson had been smoothing healing salve over his own injuries but stopped now to watch Maxwell swipe the last handful of pink snow off his arm in what could only be described as self satisfaction. The bastard.

“Like I said,” Maxwell pulled his arm back as if to shield it and plucked the honeyed bandages back up off the ground. “I expected them to know better. You on the other hand I could have expected less from.”

“If you’d just listened and followed me, it would have been fine.” Satisfaction bled away to annoyance and Wilson came to a stand with a sigh, holding his hand out expectantly.

“Into the swamp.” Maxwell questioned without much wonder behind his words. It may have worked, but it had still been a stupid plan. He moved to return the poultices to Wilson, despite what he would have assumed to be the blatantly obvious fact that he hadn’t had the time to use them yet.

“Yes! I’ve done it a hundred times now!” Wilson pulled his shoulders back in an exasperated shrug. He eyed the offered poultices and frowned, “No, not those. Your arm.”

“Excuse me?” Chalk that up to another one Maxwell had not expected. Was Wilson ill or had he temporarily forgotten who he was talking to?

Neither it seemed, because in the next breath he was complaining again. “You’re not going to be able to bandage that on your own. And as much as I’d enjoy to see you struggle for the rest of the day, I’d also like to get back to camp before I freeze to death.”

Unfortunately, he made a good point. Fortunately, Maxwell didn’t see the need to point that out. “Good thing we have enough gold, right?”

“Be quiet and hold out your arm.”

Unpleasant on both sides, then. Wilson turned to scoop up an extra salve and Maxwell carefully exposed his left arm, bracing for whatever additional pain the crude medicine would surely bring. Even with what could be cleaned away the wound was still garish and wet, and as Wilson added the salve the pulsing ache of it lanced into all the intensity of a chemical burn.

“Hold still.” Wilson grabbed Maxwell’s wrist to hold it steady and slathered more of the substance onto his arm with none of the gentle pressure of a medic. “The stinging means it’s working.”

Stinging was an understatement. Those salves were nothing but spider bits and ash, and the venom in them turned the ice in Maxwell’s veins to fire, starting from where that hound had dug its teeth in and spreading straight through to each point where Wilson’s fingertips pressed into his skin. In a word: awful.

“Twelve years lab experience and this is the best you could come up with?” He hissed, resisting the need to pull his arm away entirely. It shouldn’t have felt any worse than iodine, truthfully, and undoubtedly better than a slow and bitter infection. Somehow however, it was so much worse. Maybe that could be blamed on Wilson too.

“Eight years actually, and you can blame yourself for that.” Wilson responded, without looking up. “Endless swarms of monsters and you couldn’t even think to make up some poppy or nightshade to go with them. Those I could have used – we could have had real medicine.”

Without a doubt, he would have poisoned himself. “I didn’t create this world to _encourage_ survival, Higgsbury.”

“Just give me the poultice.”

He didn’t let go. He didn’t stop holding on to Maxwell’s wrist as he trapped one end of the gooey bandage under his thumb and began to wrap it around Maxwell’s arm. It shouldn’t have mattered; it shouldn’t have felt so much. Wilson wasn’t particularly gentle with his hands, nor was he particularly skillful in wrapping a bandage on someone that wasn’t himself, but that hardly seemed to matter. Not the unpleasantness of honey clinging against his skin, or the sharp bite of the salve only starting to cool under the cutting winter wind; not the deep ache where his flesh had been torn, or the aggravating itch of blood trapped under the wrist of his glove. There were so many far more irritating sensations he could have focused on in the moment. All of them paled, despite reason, despite _rationality_, to the comparatively inconsequential touch of Wilson’s hands against his bare skin.

It wasn’t Wilson. That much was easy to deduce when their affiliation was best regarded as a mutually disappointing and temporary endeavor at best. No, the actual cause of it was far more unfortunate. It was a first. In a long time, that was. A very long time. Maxwell couldn’t remember the last time he’d been touched by hands that weren’t shadow and darkness – had it been his last show? Before that? – had forgotten what it felt like to entertain social contact through a means aside from carefully selected words and sleight of hand. Wilson’s hands were cold as everything around them, and yet all the same each point of contact brought with it a spark of sensation. A sense of realism, a wave of relief.

And it was relief that found Maxwell as Wilson finished tying off the ends of the makeshift bandage, fingers brushing against his arm once more as he muttered about something truly inconsequential under his breath. Relief in the face of an eternity of solitude, darkness, and ego. Relief that there was something of him left to feel at all.

Maxwell was quick to school it.

“Good as new, I assume?” He said as he flexed his wrist in as much of a circle as it would allow, both to gauge the tightness of the bandaging and to shake off the lingering presence of Wilson’s hands.

Wilson had already turned away, stuffing the remaining poultices into his backpack and fitting his winter hat back over his unruly hair. “Good enough,” he decided gruffly. He looked distinctly annoyed as he moved past to meet up with the path that could take them back to camp, and that at least was familiar.

It was time to leave. Maxwell stooped to retrieve the pickaxe he’d dropped earlier, lest they waste further resources, and didn’t think about relief or rescue. Rather, he was more concerned about the stain that he’d have to wash out of his suit. It was purely in the spirit of provoking Wilson further when he said, in a tone perhaps a tad too sarcastic to be taken as sincere, “you’re a real pal.”

Wilson stopped to turn back to him. Clothes painted with slime, face scruffy and gaunt, and still holding on to that piece of tentacle arm that had saved them – haunted. Surely, he was a product of the Constant by now too. For a moment there was a spark of uncertainty in his eyes, like he was stuck between two equations. Then he reached his conclusion and tore his gaze away with a grin that was more of a grimace.

“You’re unbelievable, do you know that? What haven’t I done for you today? If I hadn’t come back around for you, we’d be looking for a touchstone right now.”

Maxwell couldn’t deny that was true. “And I’m so thankful you did.”

“No you’re not.” Still, Wilson made his own reality. For a moment he looked as if he were going to say something more, but the wind brought a howl through the treeline, setting everything to shiver and he just turned around instead. “Never mind, let’s just leave.”

Decision made, then. The temperature was dropping further, the air was cold and brittle, and as Maxwell breathed in he could feel its sharp pang in his chest. “Finally, a thermal stone is hardly a replacement for a proper coat.”

“No,” Wilson agreed for the first time since sunrise, “I bet it cools down twice as fast on you.”

_Vitreous – glasslike; sharp, brittle, transparent_


End file.
